CHINA had no plans to take fresh measures to target the property sector, while commercial banks could withstand a 20 to 30 percent fall in housing prices, a senior bank regulatory official said Friday.
China would implement the battery of property tightening policies that it had already announced, said Yan Qingmin, assistant chairman at the China Banking Regulatory Commission.
In a bid to cool near-record home prices, China has enforced a series of tightening measures since late 2009, including demanding higher down payments and trialing a maiden property tax in two cities, Shanghai and Chongqing. Banks have been told to restrict lending to developers.
The clampdown has caused prices to fall in some cities and slowed the pace of gains in others. That has fed worries among some analysts that prices may fall sharply, dragging down growth of the world s second-largest economy.
Yan, speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of an advisory body to the Chinese parliament, also said that outstanding bank loans would increase 15 percent in 2011 if the economy grows at a rate of about 8 percent.
Commercial banks must follow strict rules when giving homebuyers preferential interest rates on their first mortgage.
(SD-Agencies)
